Socio-Ecological Regime Transitions in Austria and the United Kingdom

Fridolin Krausmann, Heinz Schandl () and Rolf Peter Sieferle
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Rolf Peter Sieferle: Department of History, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

No 2007-05, Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series from CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

Abstract: We employ the concepts of socio-ecological regime and regime transition to better understand the biophysical causes and consequences of industrialization. For two case studies, the United Kingdom and Austria, we describe two steps in a major transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio-ecological regime and the resulting consequences for energy use, land use and labour organization. As the first step, the coal based industrial regime co-existed with an agricultural sector remaining within the bounds of the old regime. In the second step, the oil/electricity based industrial regime, agriculture was integrated into the new pattern and the socio-ecological transition had been completed. Industrialization offers answers to the input and growth related sustainability problems of the agrarian regime but creates new sustainability problems of a larger scale. While today?s industrial societies are stabilizing their resource use, albeit at an unsustainable level, large parts of the global society are in the midst of the old industrial transition. This poses severe problems for global sustainability.

Keywords: socio-ecological regimes; metabolic profiles; transition; social metabolism; energy flows; land use; labour; industrialization; United Kingdom; Austria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N5 O3 O5 Q1 Q4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2007-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Socio-ecological regime transitions in Austria and the United Kingdom (2008)
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